Should migrants be “blamed” for rising house prices? Or should we set aside blame and acknowledge that population growth, whatever the source, has some negative impacts?
I recently had the good fortune of visiting Vancouver, a city where I used to live a long time ago. While still beautiful, it appeared to me almost unrecognisable: everywhere, high-rise buildings, each more futuristic and imposing than the next, were rapidly replacing the pretty wooden houses I remembered, and swallowing green spaces. In spite of this building frenzy, real estate prices in Vancouver have risen madly; houses now sell for about 1,000 Canadian dollars per square foot, making it one of the most expensive cities in the world to buy a property.
Looking at the data, it appears that the metropolitan area of Vancouver has gained over 650,000 more people compared to when I last was there two decades ago. It’s not just this particularly desirable city: the country itself gains hundreds of thousands of new residents every year. In Canada as in most other wealthy countries, after decades of below-replacement birth rates, the only reason the population is growing is international migration.
Continue @ Church And State.
A credible progressive critique of excess migration entirely shorn of the racialised and xenophobic discourse associated with Trump, Farage et al.
ReplyDeletethe sort of argument we can listen to Barry, rather than the protect our women and kids. If the racists were to shout 'protect our women and kids . . . from us' I could lend my support to that!!
DeleteBarry, you should really get out more and stop listening to Jazz in a Civic Centre....
ReplyDeleteYes indeed, I agree with Barry and Anthony.
ReplyDeleteI was actually reluctant to comment on this piece, however, these discussions are important and need to happen, so here goes.
Whilst the article itself does not appear racist, the possibility remains that racists could attempt to utilise the arguments within as a convenient mask, and as the Author points out, racism is certainly an "undesirable outcome", and yes many do "consider it their responsibility to try and prevent it", because it's important that they do, but that does not mean that they're all "writing things that make no sense", although to be fair, the Author does not claim that it is everyone.
Whether racists would seek to utilise the arguments, I'm not in any way suggesting is a valid reason not to make the argument. Whether the arguments of economics is ever basic, or whether the logic should be so simple, I'm not so sure.
I agree with the Author that wealth distribution has it's part to play. I also agree with the conclusion that "It's not racist to say we're full", although, I would ask, who's we?
Then I might ask whether you are saying "we're full" to everyone, as suspicions might be aroused should this assertion only be directed towards certain people, and even more so if it turns out that you're not actually full. It reminds me of The Titanic. You can't reasonably argue if the lifeboat is full. You can certainly argue when it turns out the lifeboat has plenty room to spare, and also if the policy of loading the lifeboats is wealthy first, followed by the rest of the wealthy.
It might be helpful for some "to put morals aside and focus on policy", but I would be quite disconcerted if that was actually a genuine suggestion rather than a facetious supposition, I'll assume it's the latter. Setting aside morals is not the path I would hope humans as a society go down, I don't think it would lead to a good place.
Philosophically speaking, I think morals and policy are intertwined, although in practice that's often clearly not the case. I notice the Author is coming from an overpopulation argument perspective, and that's fine, but at the very extreme end of that, the question, and indeed the answer or decision of policy surely comes down to morals, a trolley problem so to speak. With the trolley problem, as it is a thought experiment based on a moral conundrum, it's generally looked at from the perspective of the person having to make the choice. We hear all the time politicians bemoaning and trying to solicit sympathy for themselves about how they have very difficult decisions and tough choices to make, which is true, they do, but I would suggest it's probably of little concern for those that are on the tracks. So, if and when it comes down to it, who's on the tracks, and who gets to pull the lever?